Lee, It may be accurate enough to refer to these plants simply as perennials. It does seem to be largely a monocot syndrome. Bananas, bromeliads and <some> agaves provide dramatic examples of individual plants that keep going after some shoots flower and die. Think of orchids or cannas, they also <often> generate regular sympodial shoots that are *terminated by an inflorescence* in every sense of the word. Here it may not be so obvious as it can take a number of years before these shoots and their leaves wither away. Tony, somehow I missed your original reply, but I agree. I never thought *multiannual* was a satisfactory solution. It has not caught on in any event, at least in American botanical literature. As you know there is much coming and going of temporal and regional peculiarities in botany, as in other professions. Dylan